Many companies use channel partners to ensure their products reach the end consumer. Find out how brand owners can model channel partners in SAP CRM, which provides them with the basis to make business decisions about these partners.
Key Concept
Brand owners are companies that manufacture and market particular products and product lines. To sell these products, they often enter into relationships with channel partners, such as distributors, dealers, resellers, and retailers. To best manage their channel partners, brand owners must collect as much information as possible about these partner companies and their performance. To do this, they model channel partners to understand who the partners are, their core competencies, where they are in the partner lifecycle, and how they fit into the brand owners’ overall ecosystem.
Companies who are brand owners know their core competence: their product, how to design and enhance it, how to manufacture it, and how to brand it. The next step is to find channel partners that help them do the rest: increase the local visibility and demand for the product through joint marketing activities, ensure that the product physically gets into the hands of end customers via distribution networks, provide a local presence to sell it, and provide local, specialized services for the product with a value-added service network.
I will focus on the tools that are available in SAP CRM to allow brand owners to gather information about their channel partners to intelligently manage their indirect channel. In addition, I will also touch on how channel partners can easily update their own data to ensure data accuracy. The data collected about channel partners can then be used in other business processes, allowing brand owners and channel partners to collaborate in marketing, sales, and services processes to better serve the end customer.
This article focuses on partner management in SAP CRM 2005, which is currently in general availability. For a comprehensive overview of Partner Channel Management, refer to my article, “Channel Partners Extend a Brand Owner’s Reach to End Customers,” in the CRM hub of SAPexperts.
Choose the Right Channel Partners
To determine how best to work with channel partners, every organization needs to identify its overall business goals, analyze its core competence, and then determine where the gaps are. If a brand owner does not wish to invest in building up either resources or competencies, leveraging channel partners can fill these holes in a business process. The partners should have as their core competencies those strengths and resources that complement a brand owner’s strengths. This supports the mutual goals of the brand owner and channel partner, and ensures a win-win business relationship between them.
The common ground to support a partner strategy is capturing information about the channel partners. Who are they? What type of partner function do they serve? Where are they located? Who are the main contacts within each partner company? What are their focus areas? For example, to manage channel partners, a brand owner must understand the role each partner plays, be it a distributor, reseller, or service provider, as well as the products and geographic areas each partner covers.
Growing a partner network to expand the business may be a priority for an organization, but it is essential to identify the right partners that can provide the most value. New partners often need to be recruited for a specific purpose, such as going into a new market, based on product, geography, or end-customer profile. After brand owners have established these partner relationships, an ongoing evaluation of all aspects of their interactions with each partner can identify the most successful channel partners. Brand owners can then build a closer relationship based on mutual benefits throughout the partner lifecycle.
Even though channel partners do not work directly for a brand owner, the end customer still sees them as a representative of the brand owner. For this reason, brand owners must choose channel partners carefully and train them well to make sure that channel partners appropriately represent the brand owner. To ensure a good fit between channel partners and a brand owner, the brand owner must gather as much information about each channel partner as possible.
Model Channel Partner Organizations in SAP CRM
Channel partners are modeled using business partner master data records in SAP CRM. Each channel partner company is created as a business partner organization. Each channel partner employee is created as a contact person, and is linked to the organization using the business partner relationship Is Contact Person For.
Many employees are linked to a channel partner company, as shown in Figure 1. This structure ensures that company-level information is maintained only once, while still allowing brand owners to also store partner employee information.
Figure 1
A graphical representation of a channel partner company with multiple employees
A brand owner, or channel partners themselves, can maintain the information about a channel partner. As part of the Business Package for CRM, roles are delivered for both the channel manager (brand owner) and the partner manager (channel partner). Both roles can maintain the channel partner and contact person information through SAP NetWeaver Portal. A combination of roles and Access Control Engine (ACE) allow brand owners to configure the necessary access. For more information about ACE, refer to the article, “What Can ACE Do for You? Lessons Learned from a Recent Implementation,” by Boris Dingenouts in the CRM hub of SAPexperts.
Channel Partner Companies in SAP CRM
The channel partner company is created as an organization in SAP CRM, with the business partner role called Channel partner. Additional views include the general business partner and sold-to information, such as company address and banking data. As part of the channel partner role, additional fields are available to capture information that allows a brand owner to classify its channel partners, such as the channel partner type, the level of the channel partner in the partnership program, the status of the partner company, and how long the company has been a partner.
Figure 2 shows that in SAP NetWeaver Portal, the channel manager can access the channel partner records by navigating to the Partner and Account Management tab, then to Partners. In the General Information tab, the Partner Classification section shows the channel partner fields that are part of the standard channel manager role.
From this channel partner overview, all transactions in which the channel partner company is involved are available, such as each interaction that the channel partner company has with the brand owner and all the interactions the channel partner has with the end customer on behalf of the brand owner. This includes transactions such as leads, quotations, and orders.
In addition to the fields that are part of the standard business partner role for an organization, a brand owner can define marketing attributes to capture additional information that a brand owner needs about its channel partners. To make long lists of attributes more manageable, a series of marketing attributes are collected in an attribute set, which is in turn linked to the channel partner company. Either the brand owner or the channel partner manager can complete this detailed information. For details on setting up attribute sets, refer to the sidebar, “Leverage Marketing Attributes to Capture Additional Partner Information.”
Examples of information that a brand owner may choose to capture in the marketing attributes include regions in which a channel partner is active, size (e.g., number of employees and revenue) of the channel partner company, and a product line focus of the channel partner for distribution, marketing, sales, and service processes carried out by a particular channel partner.
Figure 3 shows that in the Marketing Attributes tab, the brand owner can select the attribute set in the Attribute Set section, which then displays the different marketing attributes linked to the set in the Attributes tab below. The values of the attributes selected by the channel partner are displayed.
Figure 3
Marketing attributes allow brand owners to capture additional information about channel partners
Configuration of Channel Partner Classification Values
The channel partner role has additional fields that are available as a standard part of the role. These fields allow a brand owner to classify channel partners. The values for these fields are configurable. To access the IMG for configuration, follow menu path Architecture and Technology>Configuration>Customizing or use transaction SPRO. For all the configuration settings, follow IMG menu path Customer Relationship Management>Channel Management>Channel Partner Management>Channel Partner Classification. Three configuration settings are available to classify partners: Define Channel Partner Type, Define Channel Partner Program, and Define Channel Partner Status.
Define Channel Partner Type: The type of channel partner determines the business processes that are relevant between a brand owner and a channel partner (Figure 4). For example, different processes are relevant to a distributor that is focused primarily on logistics versus a retailer who is interested in marketing and increasing sales.
Figure 4
The types of partner relationships relevant to a brand owner are defined in a table
Define Channel Partner Program: These values determine the different levels of a channel partner program (Figure 5). The level for which a channel partner qualifies also drives access to programs that may not be available to all partnership levels. For example, a partner program may be defined so that only platinum and gold partners are eligible for benefits such as participation in a market development funds (MDF) initiative.
Figure 5
Different program levels can be defined for each partner type
Define Channel Partner Status: The status of the channel partner indicates where the partner is in the registration process of applying to become a channel partner for a brand owner (Figure 6). Typically, Active is the value that means that the brand owner and channel partner have come to an agreement about their relationship and responsibilities.
Figure 6
Status values drive business processes such as registration
It is possible to assign different combinations of the channel partner type and status to specific processes. For example, the partner status can drive which content is available for different channel partners in the portal — Interested partners may see less content than Accepted channel partners.
Channel Partner Employees in SAP CRM
The employees of the channel partner company are also modeled as business partners, using the role of Contact person. Information collected about each contact person also includes general business partner information such as address and contact information. Figure 7 shows the personal data of a contact person.
Figure 7
Define the relationship to the channel partner company in the Relationships tab (found by scrolling right to see additional tabs)
The contact person, which is a channel partner employee, is linked to the channel partner company, using business partner relationships. For example, the contact person may be defined as a partner manager or a partner employee for the channel
partner company.
In addition to the brand owner, the channel partner, typically a partner manager, can also maintain its own contact persons through SAP NetWeaver Portal. In addition, both the brand owner and the channel partner have visibility into the interaction history between the individual contact person and the brand owner, as well as the individual contact person and end customers.
Logons, or Internet users with passwords, are created only for contact persons of a channel partner company, not at the channel partner company level. This provides additional control — for example, allowing only partner managers to change partner organizational data and allowing partner employees to change only their own individual data. Additionally, this model ensures traceability of which contact person made which changes to channel partner data.
The Channel Partner Point of View
Employees of a channel partner organization have access to information provided by the brand owner by logging into SAP NetWeaver Portal, where the role determines the information to which the channel partner has access (Figure 8). From SAP NetWeaver Portal, the channel partner manager can act on current transactions, obtain news and other content, and maintain the channel partner organization data.
Figure 8
A typical Home page for a partner may include an overview of recent transactions, recommendations, and news items relevant to the channel partner
The marketing attributes that the brand owner defines are available to the channel partner manager, so updated information about the partner organization is immediately available to the brand owner (Figure 9). The list of marketing attributes is available to the channel partner manager by navigating to the Administration tab, then to My Marketing Profile. Having access to this data helps the brand owner personalize the information and business processes with an individual channel partner company.
Figure 9
The channel partner can change the marketing attribute values at any time
After the data about each channel partner has been captured, either through updates by the brand owner or directly by each channel partner, a brand owner can use this data in analytics to better understand how each partner fits into the overall strategy of a brand owner, how the different channel partners’ performance compares, and how each channel partner organization may change over time in terms of its geographic, product, or service focus. This data should be continuously monitored through analytics and scorecards to make the most effective use of the indirect channel.
Leverage Marketing Attributes to Capture Partner Information
Marketing attributes allow a brand owner to define additional information that should be captured for channel partners. Each marketing attribute is a new field that is defined and linked to the channel partner company. These fields are typically made available to partners during the partner registration process, and can be used by a brand owner to evaluate whether the channel partner is a good fit for its overall ecosystem.
If the channel partner is accepted into the program, the values that were entered into the marketing attributes during registration are automatically updated in the business partner record of the channel partner. Either the brand owner or channel partner manager can change the values for these fields.
To define a marketing attribute, follow SAP Menu path
Marketing>Segmentation> Marketing Attributes>Maintain Attributes. Here, the brand owner can define the characteristics of the new field, including such data as:
- Name, description, type of data (e.g., text, numeric, or date), and length of the attribute (e.g., the new field)
- Whether the attribute is mandatory (Entry Required). Here, the brand owner should be careful to ensure that the registration process is not too cumbersome, and that not too many fields in a long list are mandatory.
- Whether more than one value is allowed (Multi-Val.). Some channel partners may operate in multiple regions or wish to distribute more than one of the brand owner’s product lines.
- Whether the value of the attribute is free form or if it must be chosen from a list of values. In the latter case, the list of values is also maintained.
So that each marketing attribute does not need to be attached to each channel partner record individually, a series of marketing attributes can be collected into an attribute set. One or more attribute sets can then be attached to the channel partner record.
To create an attribute set, follow SAP Menu path Marketing>Segmentation>Marketing Attributes>Maintain Attribute Sets (Figure 1). The attribute set is simply a list of the individual marketing attributes that should be managed together.
Figure 1
Within the attribute set, the characteristics of an individual marketing attribute, including the values from which a channel partner can choose, can be displayed
Birgit Starmanns
Birgit Starmanns is a senior director in solution marketing at SAP for EPM (Enterprise Performance Management) and Finance solutions. Birgit has more than 20 years of experience across solution marketing, solution management, strategic customer communities, and consulting. Her functional experience is in finance, including core SAP ERP and enterprise performance management, as well as customer relationship management, which has allowed her to focus on the integration of cross-functional business processes. Prior to joining SAP, she was a principal in management consulting organizations, redesigning business processes and implementing SAP R/3 and R/2 for numerous Fortune 500 and SME companies, with a focus on management accounting. Birgit holds a BA and an MBA from the College of William and Mary.
You may contact the author at birgit.starmanns@sap.com.
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